The Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) just published a settlement agreement with Bruker AXS, the Wisconsin-based manufacturer of precision X-ray systems. The settlement, under which Bruker agreed to pay a fine of $7,500, arose from Bruker’s voluntary disclosure that it exported an EAR99 X-ray system to the Karachi CBW Research Institute University of Karachi’s Husein Ebrahim Jamal Research Institute of Chemistry (“HEJRIC”) in Karachi, Pakistan. HEJRIC is on BIS’s Entity List which means that a license is required for all exports of U.S.-origin items to HEJRIC.

It’s pretty clear what happened here. Bruker never bothered to look at or even check the entity list. This wasn’t an effort to export something that couldn’t be exported to HEJRIC because the entry for HEJRIC on the entity list notes that there is a presumption of approval for license applications for EAR99 items to HEJRIC. The lesson here is that your compliance program should make sure that all lists are checked — particularly since BIS has kindly compiled them in one place here.

UPDATE: As commenter SParis pointed out, HEJRIC was just today removed from the Entitly List.

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